With a five-figure price point, LG Electronics, Inc.'s (KSC:066570) latest television set is a bold gamble, testing whether a recovering consumer electronics market is willing to pay an extreme premium for the best technology.

The new set is a mere 4 millimeters thin and features LG's new SmartTV technology and on-board Wi-Fi. A "Magic Remote" is included with purchase.

The release marks the realization of a long standing promise -- Samsung and LG had been showingoff OLED prototypes at trade shows since at least 2008.

The move is somewhat of a surprise given the unicorn-like status of commercially available large OLED TV sets in recent years. For example, Toshiba Corp. (TYO:6502) had vowed in 2009 to release a 30+ inch OLED model, only to abruptly bail on the launch and OLED efforts in general.

OLED TVs are more power efficient than traditional LCD TVs, but that's somewhat a moot point given that they cost nearly twice as much as their LCD brethren. More relevantly, OLED sets feature much more vivid and accurate color reproduction than LCD models. For consumers obsessed with picture quality, OLEDs deliver a clear edge over their less expensive predecessors.

But some are not convinced that the advantage will be enough to convince consumers to pony up $10.3K for the LG set. Comments Seo Won Seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities in Seoul, to Bloomberg, "The key issue here is how LG could possibly narrow the price gap between the new OLED TVs and the conventional LCD TVs. The price for OLED TVs should come down to about $5,000 to $7,000 to open up the initial market, which is expected about late this year at the earliest."

II. LG Gets a Head Start

For better or worse, LG seems committed to testing the waters and Samsung will likely follow close behind. Samsung had previously committed to selling OLED sets before the end of 2012, but on Dec. 21 backed off those claims, punting its launch to sometime in 2013. Samsung cited weak demand and high prices as reasons for the delay.

LG shares rose on the launch of the OLED model. Despite skepticism regarding sales in the short term, investors appear to view LG's head-start on Samsung in this growing sector as a good thing. Market research firm IHS Inc.'s (IHS) ISuppli unit labels the OLED sector as the fasting growing part of the $100B USD TV industry. It predicts that sales will rise from 34,000 units in 2012 to 2.1m units by 2015. Given continued process improvements OLED panels are predicted by some analysts to be cheaper than LCD units by 2016.

OLED TV shipments are predicted to rise to to 2.1m units in 2015. [Image Source: iSuppli]

In an email LG boasted to Bloomberg, "LG is prepared to ramp up quickly to take the lead in the OLED segment."

LG's new set gives it a head start on rival Samsung Display [Image Source: Flickr]

It's more the standard that people are used to. These days everyone is used to DVD quality, so if you went to that same bar and it had some VHS quality signal stretched out people would think the image was terrible.

If OLED had the kind of marketshare that DVD does people would see it as the baseline and would probably notice washed out blacks and response time.

"Game reviewers fought each other to write the most glowing coverage possible for the powerhouse Sony, MS systems. Reviewers flipped coins to see who would review the Nintendo Wii. The losers got stuck with the job." -- Andy Marken